I smiled, my heart skipping at the sight of him. “What are you doing here?”
We didn’t have a meetup scheduled, but schedules were overrated, anyway.
“Thought I’d explore. See if anything interesting is happening, or if any princesses need protecting.” His mouth formed a small, teasing grin.
“Hmm.” I adopted a thoughtful expression. “I don’t know about protecting, but I can think of a few things that might interest you.”
There was no one else in the hall, even so, we kept our voices low. Intimate.
Heat turned Rhys’s eyes into molten silver. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Like a tour of the throne room.” I slowly walked backward until I reached the door leading into the ceremonial space, and we cast a quick look around before slipping inside.
I’d planned to brainstorm ways I could get the public to support a repeal, but that could wait. I hadn’t seen Rhys all day.
“So, this is a throne room.” Rhys looked around the lavish space. With its massive crystal chandeliers, thick crimson carpet and wall coverings, and gold trim, it was the most over-the-top room in the palace, but we only used it for the occasional knighting ceremony or official function. No one came in here unless they had to. “Looks exactly the way I pictured a throne room would look.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t studied every inch of every room in the palace already.”
Rhys gave me a slow smile, and my stomach flipped. “You think you know me so well.”
“I do.”
“Hmm.” He walked closer to me until we were mere inches apart. “Then do you know what I’m going to do right now?”
I held my breath. “What?”
He leaned down and whispered, “I’m going to sit you on that nice little throne over there and eat your pretty cunt out until you beg me to stop.”
I gasped out a laugh as he picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder with the ease of someone picking up a rag doll. “You can’t! No one sits on the throne except the monarch.”
Rhys set me down on the gold and velvet chair.
“It’s going to be yours one day. Might as well get used to it,” he said. “How does it feel?”
“I…” I looked around. The room seemed different from this vantage point. Bigger, more intimidating. “Strange. And scary. But…not as scary as I thought.”
In my mind, the throne was so large I’d never grow into it, but now that I was actually sitting in it? It seemed manageable.
“Because you’re ready for it.” Rhys said it like it wasn’t even a question. “You’re a fucking queen, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Including yourself.”
My mouth tipped up while my heart melted into a puddle. “If you ever give up on the bodyguard gig, you could make a killing as a motivational speaker.”
He chuckled. “Not motivation, just the truth. The throne suits you. Now…” He knelt before me and spread my thighs. “How can I serve you, Your Highness?”
Heat consumed my body as he pulled my underwear down.
“Rhys,” I hissed, my pulse racing with a mix of lust and anxiety. “Someone will catch us.”
The odds were slim, but they weren’t zero.
His wolfish smile caused my toes to curl. “Then we better make it worth it. Hmm, princess?”
I didn’t get a chance to respond before he draped my legs over his shoulders, dipped his head between my thighs, and all my protests crumbled into ash.
Rhys devoured me with the hunger of a man lost in the desert, sucking on my clit and thrusting his tongue inside me until my vision went hazy. I writhed and whimpered, sliding halfway off the throne until my legs on his shoulders and his crushing grip on my hips were the only things keeping me from collapsing.
Too much. Not enough. Everywhere. More.
I couldn’t think straight.
My moans echoed in the room, bouncing off the tapestries and portraits of previous kings and queens, all of whom glared at me disapprovingly while my bodyguard tongue fucked me into oblivion on the throne.
He sucked hard on my clit, and I yelped at the overload of sensation. I tried to pull away, but Rhys’s hands clamped around my thighs like iron bands, forcing me to hold still until my body convulsed and came apart.
Before I could gather myself back together, he was up and inside me, his big body shielding me from sight should anyone walk in and his cock driving into me forcefully enough to send the chair inching back with each thrust.
So wrong. This was so wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to care as Rhys grabbed my ankles and placed my legs on his shoulders again, bending me nearly in half.
“Now this is how a queen should be treated,” he said, his eyes dark and ravenous as they dropped from my face to where his cock pumped in and out of me. “Don’t you agree?”
“Mmph ungh.” I moaned something unintelligible, unable to speak. To think.
I was pure sensation, fire inside and out, and the last coherent thought I had before another volcano erupted and melted me into nothing was, sometimes, it’s good to be queen.
Rhys
Our trystin the throne room was the last bit of alone time Bridget and I had before her brother and future sister-in-law arrived, and she got swept up in a flurry of pre-wedding obligations. I thought normal weddings were tedious, but royal weddings were off the charts.
On the bright side, it meant Bridget didn’t have time to see Steffan, either. The fucker was back in town, and the thought of seeing them on another date made my blood burn.
I’ve gone off the rails.Hell, I’d gone off the entire fucking track. I’d never so much as gone on a third date with a woman in the past. None had interested me enough. And now I was thinking of killing over one.
Bridget had my head well and truly fucked.
“Get it together,” I muttered, slamming a jar of tomato sauce on the counter. “It’s one day.”
Except it wasn’t only one day because eventually, she would have to marry someone noble. Someone blue-blooded. Someone not me.
Fury and pain rippled through me, and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand before I spiraled too far down that path. It wouldn’t end well for me or anything in the kitchen.
I’d just turned on the stove when someone knocked on the door. Bridget was at some pre-wedding night thing with the rest of the bridesmaids, so it couldn’t be her. Who else would visit at this time of night?
I turned the stove off again and checked the security camera.
You gotta be shitting me.
I exited the kitchen, crossed the living room, and opened the front door. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Andreas raised his eyebrows. “I’m getting offended by the rude greetings you and Bridget insist on giving me. Perhaps she can get away with it, but I am a prince, and you are not.” There was an odd note in his voice when he said that, but it disappeared so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it.
“You show up at my door unannounced, you get whatever greeting I want to give.” My smile contained more threat than humor. “Be glad you’re not staring down the barrel of my gun.”
Andreas clucked in disappointment. “And to think, I came here to help.”
“I doubt that.”
“Contrary to what Bridget may have told you, I’m not a bad guy. I want what’s best for my family and country.” He straightened the cuffs of his shirt. “For example, I find it quite admirable, how Nikolai abdicated for true love. At the end of the day, he’s the one who has to live his life, and he chose happiness. Good for him.”
Impatience spiraled through me. “Do you have a point, or do you just like hearing yourself talk?”
“I do enjoy hearing myself talk,” Andreas said. “Usually because I speak the truth. But Nikolai’s wedding made me wonder…which would Bridget choose if she had the choice? Her heart or her country?”
My hand closed around the doorknob. I was this close to slamming the door in his face, prince or not. “She’s not abdicating. Whatever scheme you have in mind, it’s not gonna work.”
“You might be right, in which case I feel sorry for my cousin. Stuck in a marriage of political convenience for the rest of her life.” Sympathy crossed Andreas’s face, but it didn’t fool me. “She’s a romantic, even if she tries to hide it. Grand love and all that. Sadly, that’s not always in the cards for the heir to the throne.” He paused. “Then again, Steffan Holstein could very well be an exception. They make a good-looking couple, don’t you think?”
A muscle pulsed in my jaw.
“Like I said, I look out for my family and country.” Andreas’s eyes flickered. “I want everyone to be happy, and while Steffan seems like perfectly adequate consort material, Bridget would be far happier if she abdicated.”
“So you can be king,” I said flatly.
He shrugged. “She never wanted to be queen, anyway. Why not pass the throne to me?”
“You know, this all sounds like a personal problem. For you,” I said coldly. “Don’t understand why you’re telling me all this.”
Andreas’s smile made my guard shoot straight up. “An American contractor who moved to another country so he can be the princess’s permanent bodyguard? I think you do.” He turned, but before he left, he added, “Thank you for indulging me, Mr. Larsen. It’s been quite an enlightening conversation.”
Bridget was right. He was a satanic little turd, not to mention a dangerous one. If he didn’t know about Bridget and me, he at least suspected I had feelings for her.
I shut the door with a slam.
Was Andreas the one who’d snooped through the guesthouse? I couldn’t think of a good reason why he’d do that unless he’d hoped to find something incriminating about Bridget, in which case he was shit out of luck.
What was the penalty for punching a prince in the face? Whatever it was, it might be worth it.
My phone rang, and I answered it without glancing at the caller ID. “What?” I barked. It was probably Christian again, calling to throw me deeper into a shitty mood.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Bridget’s amused voice flowed over the line.
My muscles relaxed, and I blew out a breath. “Thought you were someone else, princess.” I leaned against the wall. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the bridesmaid thing?”
“Yes. I snuck into the bathroom. I can’t talk for long, but the wedding’s tomorrow and…” Bridget’s voice lowered. “I miss you.”
We saw each other every day, but I knew what she meant. I missed the moments that belonged only to us.